Ronald Shumway and his mother lived in the house on Winnetka for decades.

He attended Sunset High School, where he played golf and was a member of the student council. He graduated in 1976.

Ronald Shumway was a Sunset High graduate.

His mother died in the early 2000s, leaving him on his own as a gay man in a gentrifying Oak Cliff neighborhood.

Shumway was active on Facebook, where he posted often about the Dallas Cowboys and Whitney Houston and seemed friendly enough. But that wasn’t a side his neighbors saw.

“He was frequently on the front porch or backyard, screaming, ranting, shouting racial epithets to no one in particular,” says Brad Nitschke, who lived in the house next to Shumway’s for six years.

Police were called to Shumway’s property nearly two dozen times between 2012 and 2015, records show. Many of the calls were for the Crisis Intervention Team, which helps people with mental health issues or those believed to be living in a state of self-neglect.

Texas CrimeCastHost Jen Emily chats with writers Naheed Rajwani and Christopher Wynn about Christopher Colbert, who came to Dallas in pursuit of wealth and fame and left an alleged con man and murderer. He is accused of killing Ronald Shumway, hiding his body under a slab of concrete and posing as him to sell his house. The group also talks to Fred Robertson, who found Shumway's body.

For the past five years, Shumway had worked as a bus driver for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, according to news reports.

But on April 24, 2015, DART officials received Shumway’s resignation in an email, WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reported.

For the next several days, posts on Shumway’s Facebook page mentioned a move to Austin to be with a new partner, someone referred to as his “cowboy.”

“He actually lives on a ranch,” one status update says. “I’m going to be his Ranch Hand :)”

But by then, police believe, Shumway was already dead.

the tenant

Christopher Colbert wanted to be rich and famous.

He would end up broke and infamous.

In a now-ominous portrait taken by The Dallas Morning News 18 years ago, Colbert stands next to his own glass artwork on display at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary — the facsimile of a smile captured in the mirror’s shattered surface.

Colbert’s piece is called Cracked.

Christopher Colbert’s Cracked was part of a display at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary in 1998. (File Photo/Nan Coulter)

Colbert didn’t respond to The News’ request for an interview.

Nobody was a closer witness to his erratic, decades-long fragmentation than Nathan Cross, Colbert’s former partner.

Cross, 50, gets emotional when he talks about Colbert. He agreed to speak with The News exclusively only because he didn’t recognize the Chris he read about on Facebook or whenever he turned on the news last winter.

Cross insists Colbert was “a genuinely caring person.” He was devoted to his two dachshunds, whom he referred to as his children.

He was also volatile and self-destructive, Cross says.

As social as Colbert was, almost no one truly knew him. And, according to Cross, he was the only one who ever really loved him.

The men met in a divey Arlington gay bar in 1992. Colbert was fresh out of beauty school.

“He was a shiny and attractive person,” Cross says.

Colbert had fled small-town Tahlequah, Okla., in a clunky Ford Tempo that needed a push to get started. He came to Dallas to become somebody.

“He was like a cat. He would be your friend one moment, but he could turn on you.”

Nathan Cross, Christopher Colbert’s ex-partner

“He had a pretty messed-up childhood,” Cross says. “That showed through in his relationship with me and everyone else. He wasn’t a very trusting person.”

Colbert moved into Cross’ apartment and quickly began working his way up in the salon business.

“He was a really good haircutter,” Cross says.

He scored a job with upscale chain Toni & Guy, but there was another Chris on staff, so he started using the name “Christian” professionally. Years later, he would pronounce his last name the French way with a silent T.

“But trust me,” Cross says, “he was still Colbert from Oklahoma” with a hard T.

Colbert was skilled at his work, but far from disciplined. Cross says he would frequently flake out on clients and if there were no appointments, he would leave rather than take walk-ins to build his business. He also bristled easily with co-workers and management.

In the mid-’90s, the men moved into a warehouse loft on Canton Street near Deep Ellum. The hip, gritty space was a sprawling 2,500 square feet and rented for just $800 a month.

“Those were the happy years,” says Cross, who by then had found a steady white-collar desk job he loved. “He liked Dallas, and Dallas liked him.”

The men thrived, and their loft became a late-night party pad with a rotating cast of eccentric characters. Cross had fun, but he was older than Colbert and was also feeling the urge for a quieter, saner life.

The loft meant that Colbert finally had the space to pursue a longtime passion for visual art.

“He was real high on the creativity side, not so much on the talent side,” Cross says bluntly.

That didn’t stop Colbert from becoming co-owner of Shadow Gallery on Exposition Avenue. The December 2000 debut got a small mention in the weekly gay news publication, the Dallas Voice.

Former Voice writer Daniel Kusner, who now lives in New York, remembers Colbert as a “post-modern club kid trying to align himself with the cultural scene in Dallas.”

The gallery had one profitable show, but the others flopped and Colbert closed it after several months, demoralized.

It was around this time that Colbert and Cross broke up, though they would continue living together out of financial convenience for another seven years or so.

Colbert could never quite get things together after the split.

Who was the real Christopher Colbert?

The hairdresser, aspiring artist and club kid came to Dallas to be rich and famous. He left an alleged con man and murder suspect.

TOP/LEFT: By the late 1990s, Colbert had thrown himself into Dallas’ visual art scene. (File Photo/Nan Coulter)

MIDDLE: For a time, Colbert managed the short-lived Face for Men salon. (Evans Caglage/The Dallas Morning News)

He blew a high-profile job in 2005 managing the short-lived Face for Men salon in Dallas’ West Village.

He briefly moved to Los Angeles, but the West Coast party scene ate him alive. He called Cross, frantic, in 2012 to rescue him.

Cross says bringing him back was the biggest mistake of his life.

Colbert was strung out on drugs, but Cross let him move into his new Carrollton apartment for what was supposed to be two months. It turned into two years.

He was “seriously paranoid,” Cross says. He thought there were government “men in black” on their roof. Whenever Cross would buy him a new laptop to help out, Colbert would have it disassembled and ruined within a week to remove the “listening” devices.

Shumway posted photos of Colbert in early 2015.

Cross says there were two reasons he couldn’t handle being in a relationship with Colbert.

“He did not handle alcohol well,” he says. “He wasn’t a lush old drunk on a bar stool and he didn’t drink all the time. But when he did, he did it to get plastered. He couldn’t control it.”

The second reason?

“He was very vicious when he got angry,” Cross says. “He didn’t have a very strong sense of loyalty. He did to me, but no one else. He would get into fights. He would hurt people’s feelings.

“He was like a cat. He would be your friend one moment, but he could turn on you.”

the house

Shumway turned 57 on April 22, 2015. Court records say Colbert strangled him the next day.

By May, police say, Colbert was pretending to be the man he now admits to killing, though he says he acted in self-defense.

Authorities haven’t explained how or when Colbert met Shumway, though friends say the older man was Colbert’s DART driver.

By 2014, Colbert was living rent-free in Shumway’s spare duplex unit on Winnetka and was driving Shumway’s SUV. Shumway listed Colbert as his relative on Facebook.

“Oh, who are you staying with that’s nice enough to let you use their vehicle?” asked Rhiannon Snodgrass, one of Colbert’s former neighbors from Carrollton.

He told her: “There’s this bus driver I met on the bus. He’s kind of an old man.”

Snodgrass remembers teasing Colbert, asking if the two were in a relationship.

Exchanges on Facebook between Shumway and Colbert indicated they knew each other well before Colbert moved into Shumway’s spare unit in Oak Cliff.

Between November 2014 and late April 2015, police were called to 725 and 727 N. Winnetka about a dozen times. Details of the calls were not released, but records show they included reports of burglary, major disturbances and criminal mischief.

TIMELINE: A killing on Winnetka Avenue

The following was compiled from court records and police statements.

April 23, 2015
Ronald Shumway is slain in his home on North Winnetka Avenue.

May 17
Christopher Colbert contacts Connor Steinbrook, a real estate investor, about the sale of a house on Winnetka Avenue. Colbert allegedly introduces himself to Steinbrook as Shumway.

May 20
Steinbrook meets Colbert. Court records say Colbert drove a gray SUV, believed to be Shumway’s, to the meeting. After Steinbrook photographs the property on Winnetka, he and Colbert sign a contract that lists $145,000 as the price of the property.

May 23
Colbert emails Steinbrook using Shumway’s email address, asking him how fast the house can be sold, court records say.

June 22
Colbert meets with Steinbrook and Patricia Bramhall, an escrow officer for the title company involved in the closing of the house. Colbert allegedly continues the pretense that he is Shumway. When Bramhall asks Colbert for an ID, he tells her he doesn’t have his driver’s license and will fax it to her later, court records say. He allegedly signs and initials the closing documents as Shumway.

June 23
Colbert faxes to Bramhall a copy of Shumway’s driver’s license, with the message: “Hey Trish, Here’s my license and Bank of America wire … Thanks! Nice to meet you.” Shumway’s information is correct in the faxed image, but Colbert’s photo appears to be superimposed on the photo of Shumway on the driver’s license, police say.

June 24
The Chicago Title Co. wires $109,969.54 to a bank account that appears to belong to Ronald Shumway and his late mother. Police allege Colbert withdrew the money from Shumway’s bank account later on, using Shumway’s debit card.

Sept. 24
Dallas police find unidentified remains under a slab of concrete in the backyard of 725 N. Winnetka Ave.

Feb. 12, 2016
Officials conclude the remains found in the backyard are those of Shumway.

Feb. 22-25
Arrest warrants are issued for Colbert on charges of tampering with a government record, securing execution of a document by deception and money laundering.

March 3
Colbert is arrested by U.S. marshals in Los Angeles. In an interview later with Dallas detectives, who flew to L.A. to see him, Colbert admits that he killed Shumway during an argument.

March 14
Colbert is charged with murder.

In May 2015, Colbert called an investor named Connor Steinbrook, court records state. He introduced himself as Shumway and said his mother had died recently, Steinbrook said.

Steinbrook told The News there were a few signs that something was amiss.

Facebook posts first reported by the Dallas Voice suggest that someone was impersonating Shumway on social media after his death, which police believe occurred on April 23, 2015.

Colbert was initially willing to sell the house for $145,000, more than $200,000 below the house’s market value.

When the two met in person to discuss the deal, Colbert brought documents that covered several decades of the home’s history, but he didn’t know if a lien on the house had been paid off.

The phony Shumway was so desperate to sell the house, he agreed to drop the asking price to about $110,000, Steinbrook says.

Colbert showed up at the closing in June with a shaved head and a beard. His behavior was strange, Steinbrook says, but not strange enough to make him suspicious.

“Usually people that come to us have gone through a life event that they want to sell the house quickly,” Steinbrook says. “I just thought that he had inherited the property.”

Money from the sale was transferred to Shumway’s bank account, and police believe Colbert withdrew it using Shumway’s debit card.

“He’s signing everything as Ron, he’s coming through Ron’s email,” Steinbrook says. “I never saw an ID, but it wasn’t hard for him to actually get away with what he did.”

The house was sold to two more people before police started looking for Shumway, who hadn’t been seen since April.

When the remains were found in the backyard, Steinbrook assumed it belonged to the man he’d bought the property from.

But later, when the real Shumway’s photo was shown on the news, Steinbrook realized he had been duped.

“Everybody just got blindsided by it,” Steinbrook says.

U.S. marshals arrested Colbert on March 3 in Los Angeles.

He initially denied but later confessed to Shumway’s killing and the fraud that followed, police records say. He faces charges of murder, forgery and money laundering.

In a police interview, Colbert admitted strangling Shumway, but said he was defending himself after the older man tried to choke him while they were drinking.

Afterward, he went to a Home Depot about two miles away to buy bags of cement he used to hide the body, court records state.

“He stated that he ‘just made a thing around the house,’ referring to the cement enclosure,” his arrest affidavit states.

Shumway’s half brother said he understands why Colbert might have wanted to defend himself but he doesn’t understand the need to hide the body and impersonate the victim.

“Were you afraid of him when you went to Home Depot to buy cement to make a makeshift grave?” Mark Shumway says. “Were you afraid of him when you were burying him in his backyard? Were you afraid of him when you were draining his bank account of all the money he had? … Were you still afraid of Ron Shumway then?”

the aftermath

Robertson, the investor who found Shumway’s remains, had elaborate plans for the house on Winnetka. He wanted to build a staircase in the entryway and convert the attic to a room.

He figured the house would sell easily, and for a good profit, because of its proximity to Bishop Arts and Deep Ellum.

But after the grisly discovery in the backyard, he wasn’t so sure it would.

“I'm not a rich guy,” Robertson says. “I lost a lot of sleep for a lot of nights.”

Six months later, and because he had a title insurance policy on the house, Robertson got back the money he paid for it.

“In our business, we have this saying that you look for these junker houses, but you look for houses that have good bones,” Robertson says. “This gives a whole new meaning to finding a junker house with good bones.”

Colbert remains locked up in downtown Los Angeles, awaiting extradition to Dallas. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for next week.

Editor’s note: Staff writer Christopher Wynn was a salon client of Christopher Colbert’s in the mid-1990s.

The man accused of killing an Oak Cliff resident and posing as the victim to sell his house is back in Dallas after spending three months in a Los Angeles jail.

Authorities say Christopher Colbert, 43, killed DART driver Ronald Shumway in April 2015 and posed as Shumway weeks later to sell his house for about $110,000.

The case, which began as a missing person‘s bulletinand evolved into a homicide investigation, made headlines across the country.

U.S. marshals arrested Colbert in Los Angeles in March.

But he remained in L.A. while prosecutors in Dallas moved forward with the case, securing an indictment in April on charges of murder, forgery and money laundering.

Colbert was finally extradited to Dallas County over the weekend and booked into the county jail Sunday afternoon. He apparently got a tattoo — visible on his neck in a mugshot taken Sunday — while he was away from Dallas.

His jail record lists four charges related to Shumway‘s death, and three outstanding warrants from other North Texas cities.

He hasn‘t paid his fines for public intoxication in Carrollton, failure to display an operator‘s license in Grand Prairie and disregarding a traffic sign in Grand Prairie, jail records show.

Updated June 10, 2016 7:30 a.m.

The man accused of strangling an Oak Cliff homeowner and selling his house proclaimed his innocence Thursday, despite confessing to police three months ago.

In an exclusive interview at the Dallas County Jail, Christopher Colbert talked at length about his beloved dachshunds, but he refused to answer questions related to the murder charge that landed him in jail in March.

“To be stripped of your dignity, your responsibilities, your rights; you are left with the core of who you really are,” the 43-year-old said, wearing a gray jail uniform and clutching a worn paperback on Christian Science.

During an argument in April 2015, police say, Colbert strangled Ronald Shumway — who had allowed Colbert to live in his spare duplex unit for free — and entombed the body in a concrete slab in Shumway’s backyard.

He then posed as the older man, court records say, to sell the house for about $110,000, which he withdrew from Shumway’s bank account before fleeing Dallas.

U.S. marshals arrested Colbert in Los Angeles three months ago, and he has been in custody since. He was transferred to Dallas on Sunday.

In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Colbert said he isn’t ready to talk about the allegations against him because he doesn’t want to compromise his legal case. But he said he believes that people will change their opinions about him once they know the real story.

To that end, he said he is cooperating with a Los Angeles-based writer on a book and has received two movie offers. When he spoke with The News on Thursday, he refused to be photographed, videotaped or recorded. And he frequently asked to retract comments he made.

LEFT: During Thursday’s interview, Colbert’s thoughts repeatedly turned to his beloved dachshunds, Winston (left) and Bogart.; RIGHT: Christopher Colbert shows off one of his custom LED-lighted dog leashes in a photo from his Instagram account. (Photos via @mutleycrewdoggroomer)

Colbert moved to Texas in 1992 from a small town in Oklahoma. He found success as a hairdresser, but less so as an aspiring artist. In recent years, he was waiting tables and making custom dog leashes to sell in local boutiques.

By the time police named him as a suspect in the Shumway case, Colbert had moved to L.A. He was still selling his leashes. He said he asked shops that carried them to donate 15 percent of the sales to animal shelters. He also worked as a dog groomer giving punk-rock haircuts and posted photographs on Instagram as @mutleycrewdoggroomer.

Colbert occasionally broke down crying during Thursday’s interview and at times appeared stunned by his predicament.

“I’m still the same person I always was,” he said. “It’s still me who is here.”